Thou seest not all; but piecemeal thou must break, In mighty graduations, part by part, The glory which at once upon thee did not dart, Not by its fault-but thine: Our outward sense That what we have of feeling most intense Fools our fond gaze, and greatest of the great Till, growing with its growth, we thus dilate Then pause, and be enlighten'd; there is more Of wonder pleased, or awe which would adore Its depth, and thence may draw the mind of man 64. Burial of Sir John Moore. Not a drum was heard-not a funeral note, We buried him darkly, at dead of night, No useless coffin inclosed his breast; Not in sheet or in shroud we wound him; Few and short were the prayers we said, We thought, as we hollowed his narrow bed, That the foe and the stranger would tread o'er his head, Lightly they'll talk of the spirit that's gone, But little he'll reck, if they let him sleep on But half of our heavy task was done, When the bell tolled the hour for retiring; And we heard the distant and random gun That the foe was sullenly firing. Slowly and sadly we laid him down, From the field of his fame fresh and gory; 65. The Last Man. All worldly shapes shall melt in gloom, The Sun himself shall die, Before this mortal shall assume I saw a vision in my sleep, That gave my spirit strength to weep, I saw the last of human mould, The Sun's eye had a sickly glare, Some had expired in fight-the brands That shook the sere leaves from the wood Saying, 'We are twins in death, proud Sun; 'Tis mercy bids thee go; For thou, ten thousand thousand years, That shall no longer flow. 'What though beneath thee man put forth His pomp, his pride, his skill; And arts that made fire, flood, and earth, Yet mourn I not thy parted sway, And triumphs that beneath thee sprang 'Go,-let oblivion's curtain fall Upon the stage of men, Its piteous pageants bring not back, Stretch'd in disease's shapes abhorr'd Like grass beneath the scythe. Even I am weary in yon skies My lips that speak thy dirge of death — The eclipse of nature spreads my pall— 'This spirit shall return to Him 'Go, Sun, while Mercy holds me up, To drink this last and bitter cup Of grief that man shall taste ;- The darkening universe defy Or shake his trust in God.-CAMPBELL. SORROW. 66. The Death of the Flowers. The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year, Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sere. Heaped in the hollows of the grove, the withered leaves lie dead: They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbit's tread. The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrub the jay, And from the wood-top calls the crow, through all the gloomy day. Where are the flowers, the fair young flowers, that lately sprung and stood In brighter light and softer airs, a beauteous sisterhood? The wind-flower and the violet, they perished long ago, Till fell the frost from the clear, cold heaven, as falls the plague on men, And the brightness of their smile was gone from upland, glade, and glen. And now, when comes the calm, mild day, as still such days will come, To call the squirrel and the bee from out their winter home, When the sound of dropping nuts is heard, though all the trees are still, And twinkle in the smoky light the waters of the rill, The south wind searches for the flowers whose fragrance late he bore, And sighs to find them in the wood and by the stream no more. And then I think of one who in her youthful beauty died— And we wept that one so lovely should have a life so brief; BRYANT. |